Yet a theme is emerging from the tumult of the White House: For a president who promised "unity," division remains Trump's signature tactic. And what troubles critics is that Trump's behavior seems utterly familiar in authoritarian contexts elsewhere in the world.

Case in point: Trump's reaction to the widespread protests against his immigration ban, as well as his fury at the federal judge who shot it down in court. Rather than recognizing these voices of dissent for what they are — normal features of a healthy democracy — Trump sought to attack the very legitimacy of his opponents, deeming protesters "thugs" and "paid" activists while questioning the judge's authority to disagree with him.

Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

This has been the modus operandi of the Trump administration. When faced with the reality of having lost the popular vote by a massive margin, it propagated evidence-free conspiracy theories that millions of "illegals" voted for Hillary Clinton. When posed critical questions about the travel ban this week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer chastised the Washington press for being disconnected from real Americans outside the Beltway — as if disquiet over the executive order is restricted to a few elites in coastal cities.

The "people," when invoked by Trump and his camp, does not signify everyone in the United States. It means his supporters, the minority of Americans who voted him into office and see themselves uplifted by his brand of populist ultra-nationalism. Trump brilliantly (and probably unintentionally) summed up this tension on the campaign trail last year: "The only important thing is the unification of the people, because the other people don’t mean anything," he said in May.

We're getting a clearer sense of who those meaningless "other people" may be in Trump's mind. It includes the tens of thousands of people adversely affected by the immigration ban, which in one fell swoop disrupted lives, separated families and shattered dreams. Some of these people are legal permanent residents of the United States. Others are American citizens with relatives and friends stuck in airports and caught in bureaucratic limbo.

But to Trump, their very real concerns matter less than his visions of a phantom threat. In a stunning series of tweets over the weekend, Trump conjured up a world where "bad people" were now "pouring in" into the United States — no matter that most counter-terrorism experts believe his ban barring refugees and restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations will not make the country safer.

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

Philip Gourevitch, a journalist who once chronicled the genocidal massacres in Rwanda — the hideous endpoint of what happens when a society engages in the demonization of those in its midst — reacted in horror at the game Trump seems to be playing:

Think about it: at this point Trump desperately needs America to be attacked by jihadis.

Trump's brand of populism thrives in this climate of hysteria and fear. It is allergic to talk of pluralism or multiculturalism, notes Jan-Werner Müller, a Princeton political scientist and author of a widely-acclaimed recent book on populism. "It is actually in Trump’s interest to see clashes on America’s streets," he warns.

Populists, in Müller's view, "claim that they and they alone represent the people. All other political competitors are essentially illegitimate, and anyone who does not support them is not properly part of the people … The people are a moral, homogeneous entity whose will cannot err."